Pathfinder 1E The problem of encumbrance.

[Matthias]

One of the nice things about PF is that it neatly eliminated the whole accounting mini-game that was built into the skill rank rules of 3.X. Unfortunately, we did not get a satisfactory substitute for the bean-counting exercise that is the encumbrance rules.

Of course there are GMs and players who ignore the issue altogether, and would prefer to focus on more productive exercises that involve actually rolling dice and earning XP. But for everyone else, there is a certain need to try to inject some realism into how much stuff a given character can carry around, or how much their mount, wagon, boat, airship, etc. can hold at one time.

So there must be some sort of elegant method to let us pretend that a PC's Strength score actually means something in terms of carrying capacity, without falling into the trap of pretending you are an Internal Encumbrance Service agent auditing the net effective weight of their total worldly possessions, minus deductions for animal dependants, extradimensional containment devices, and so on.

Perhaps something along the lines of d20 Modern's "wealth bonus" provides a clue to how encumbrance can be "simulated" without getting into the gritty detail of every object of non-negligible weight.

What house rules for encumbrance do you use, experimented with (perhaps unsuccessfully), or have considered using in future?

 

[frankthedm]

Imported 4E's used equipment sells for 1/5th value, if the vendor wants it. I generally refer to it as the Disc Replay Rule. Helps immensely with players trying to carry more than they are able to.

 

[MerricB]

I have always liked the quick and easy solution of letting armour determine encumbrance, and only worrying about it if the characters seem to be carrying too much.

Lets face it: the reason encumbrance is so fiddly is because there's so many different types of gear. I generally just eyeball it until it matters... Large amounts of treasure, etc.

Cheers!

 

[WhatGravitas]

What house rules for encumbrance do you use, experimented with (perhaps unsuccessfully), or have considered using in future?

Roughly this here:Anti-Hammerspace Item Tracker. Encumbrance has the problem that it's about weight when bulk and volume are much more limiting. Giving out one bonus slot (not row!) per strength bonus is reasonable as well.

 

[brvheart]

I use HeroLab which neatly tracks all this stuff for me so that I don't have to. Most of the time I find a lot of the player are at least medium encumbered and have to drop their packs when getting into melee. For parties that don't have extra dimensional spaces to carry their extra stuff I make them get a wagon and mules or horses to do so. While it does involve some risk as it means they have something they need to protect, it does allow them to not worry as much about extra gear.

 

[Jester David]

Of course there are GMs and players who ignore the issue altogether, and would prefer to focus on more productive exercises that involve actually rolling dice and earning XP. But for everyone else, there is a certain need to try to inject some realism into how much stuff a given character can carry around, or how much their mount, wagon, boat, airship, etc. can hold at one time.

So there must be some sort of elegant method to let us pretend that a PC's Strength score actually means something in terms of carrying capacity, without falling into the trap of pretending you are an Internal Encumbrance Service agent auditing the net effective weight of their total worldly possessions, minus deductions for animal dependants, extradimensional containment devices, and so on.

In my experience, this is one of those rare situations where there is two distinct camps: those who track encumbrance and those who don't. The nitpickiness of the system doesn't matter to the latter and is fine for the former.

Having to consult a chart is annoying but it's something you only need to look at during character gen so it's forgivable.

What house rules for encumbrance do you use, experimented with (perhaps unsuccessfully), or have considered using in future?

I've thought about this a bit and mused about a "slot" system.
Characters have so many equipment slots based on their Strength score and items take up a set amount of slots. Containers like backpacks hold a certain amount of goods. Items under a pound don't count or count as something like 5 or 10 to a slot.
Kinda like Diablo without the equipment Tetris.

While I haven't done the math, off the top of my head it might worth with each 5 lbs counting as one "slot", and one slot per point of strength. Depending on how it compares to the chart this might be adventuring gear only and exclude worn equipment, or not. But I'd prefer if it only counted carried gear, or if worn equipment applied a reduced penalty to carrying capacity.

 

[Kasbark]

I use a diablo-style inventory, where players have a bag pack the size of half a A4 page, and a A4 picture of a character with slots for all the items they can wear, all made from steel-paper. Items are then made from magnetic paper, cut into squares depending on how large or weighty the item is (a one handed sword is 1 by 3 squares for instance).

It's quite far from the original system, and takes a long time to set up the first time, but i think it was worth the effort. Plus it feels very good to give out a physical piece of gear when the players loot a magic sword!

 

[Crothian]

I always found encumbrance easy. The amount a character can carry is written on the character sheet so no need to look that up. Then it is simple to have the weight of each item also on the character sheet and then add them up.

To simplify for a one shot or convention game what I would do is just give the characters items slots like they can fit four things in a back pack, one in belt pouch, two in a sack, etc. Then they can determine what they want and are limited to how much. It gets a little silly when you have a shield in a belt pouch or something like that but it works.

 

[Alzrius]

How to deal with encumbrance weighs heavily on my mind.